


The Road Trip, or "How Not To Do Childcare, by Fingon and Aredhel"

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Gen, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 08:33:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With their parents, brother and cousins away for the weekend, Fingon and Aredhel must entertain and look after their littlest brother. This may or may not end in disaster. (Modern AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Road Trip, or "How Not To Do Childcare, by Fingon and Aredhel"

**[9:13am, Saturday]**

“Bye amil! Bye atar! Have a good weekend!” Findekáno yelled from the door. Irissë heard the car start outside. A few minutes later, her brother was opening the door of her room, before knocking half-heartedly, shooting her a grin. Arakáno held his brother’s hand, sucking his thumb and clinging to Findekáno’s leg.

“They’ve gone then?” said Irissë.

“They have. It’s just us and Arakáno” said Findekáno, nodding at their brother, who was now chewing Findekáno’s sleeve.

Irissë wrinkled her nose. “Where’s Turno?”

“Don’t you remember? He’s gone for the weekend too, to meet Elenwë’s parents.”

Irissë laughed. “Ha! That’ll be interesting, a weekend in that big mansion. They’ve got a tennis court  _and_  a sauna, would you believe. Poor Turno, I bet he’s terrified.”

“He’ll be alright. In the meantime, what shall we do with our freedom?”

“Hardly freedom!” scoffed Irissë, nodding at Arakáno. “We’ve got to look after him!”

As if on cue, Arakáno let out a loud wail, plopping himself down onto the floor at Findekáno’s feet. Findekáno swept him into his arms, muttering endearments to him and stroking his hair as Arakáno sobbed and hiccupped. “Want ammë! Want ada!” he choked out.

“Sorry Arakáno” said Irissë. “Just us, I’m afraid.”

“We could… take him out?” said Findekáno doubtfully. “To the park or something.”

They both looked out the window, where the rain was coming down in sheets. “Not the best of your ideas Finno” said Irissë. “Why don’t we feed him? That usually works.”

Arakáno brightened visibly at her words.

**[9:37am, Saturday]**

A jar of chocolate biscuits was open on the kitchen table, and all three siblings were helping themselves.

“So, I said to Maitimo” said Findekáno, spraying crumbs onto the table as he talked with a mouthful of biscuit “that we would need some help today and tomorrow, preferably from someone with his babysitting talents. But  _noooo_ , apparently they’re all off to Formenos this weekend. Family holiday or some such.”

“I know, I heard” said Irissë. “But we don’t need them! We can look after Arakáno well enough ourselves.”

**[10:24am, Saturday]**

“I’m bored” announced Arakáno, pouting and knocking over the tower of blocks that Findekáno had built for him.

“Hey! Don’t do that!” Findekáno looked a little hurt.

Irissë rolled her eyes.

**[11:15am, Saturday]**

“I don’t like this movie” whined Arakáno, burying his face in Irissë’s sweater. She patted his head. “Don’t worry, Harry’s going to survive. Dobby, on the other hand…” Arakáno wailed.

**[2:21pm, Saturday]**

“Ugh! Get it out of my hair!” yelled Findekáno.

“I’m  _trying_ , hold still!”

“Why did you even think it was a good idea to give him bubblegum?”

“I thought it would keep him entertained?”

Findekáno gritted his teeth. “Just go over to my phone and google how you get bubblegum out of hair.”

Irissë reached out to Findekáno’s phone, before he grabbed her arm hastily. “Wait… no. Actually, use yours.” He turned slightly pink.

She frowned. “Finno… what’s on there…?”

But before Findekáno could reply there was a yell from the hallway.

“Oh Eru, if he’s fallen down the stairs…”

**[2:23pm, Saturday]**

“Ssh, Arakáno, it’s okay. It’s just a little bump, it will be better soon” soothed Irissë, sticking a plaster to Arakáno’s nose. “You should be glad it’s not broken. You could have had a squashed face, and we wouldn’t want that would we?”

“Irissë!” hissed Findekáno. “You’re not helping!”

**[2:37pm, Saturday]**

They lay on the sofa with Arakáno cradled between them to stop him squirming, clutching chocolate wrappers in his sticky fingers. “What if we went to Formenos?”

Irissë raised her head. “What?”

“Maitimo and his brothers. They’re in Formenos. We’re here. Let’s get in my car and go and visit. We’d be back before amil and atar get home tomorrow night, they’d never even have to know.”

“Finno, that’s a terrible idea” she looked down at Arakáno, who was now chewing a foil wrapper contentedly. “But yes, let’s do it.”

**[3:08pm, Saturday]**

Findekáno unlocked his rather dented blue Corsa. “Where’s his car seat? How do you install it again?”

**[3:27pm, Saturday]**

“Findekáno, for the sake of everyone’s sanity, can you let me choose the music?”

“Hey! I like it!”

Irissë grimaced. “Your inexplicable love of harp covers of the soundtrack to Grease is something everyone in our family is quite aware of.”

“Just because you want to listen to Lady Gaga… anyway, I’m the one driving. I get to choose.”

Irissë raised an eyebrow. “I would happily take over the driving, if you like.”

“You only passed your test two weeks ago, and you  _barely_  passed, at that. Besides, it’s my car.”

Arakáno’s voice broke into their conversation. “Are we there yet?”

Irissë sighed. “No. No we’re not.”

**[4:01pm, Saturday]**

“So, in the end we got his slippers, carefully filled the ends with peanut butter, and put them back beside his bed. You should have seen Turukáno’s  _face!_ ”

Findekáno grinned. “Irissë, you’re awful. You and Tyelkormo both.”

“Admit it though. You’re laughing.”

“I am.” Findekáno scowled suddenly. “Damn, missed the junction.”

Irissë cuffed him gently on the arm with the map. “Honestly. Here I am doing a good job with the navigation, even if I do say so myself, and you somehow manage to get us lost anyway.”

“Lost? Who said we’re lost? It’ll be easy to find our way back to the right road, in fact we might even get there quicker. I think I remember a short cut…”

Irissë did not look convinced. “Well at least he’s asleep now” she said, jerking her thumb at Arakáno in the back seat. Suddenly he opened his eyes.

“Are we there yet?” he asked brightly.

**[5:28pm, Saturday]**

“Finno! I’m hungry. Can we stop for food?” asked Arakáno.

Findekáno sighed. “Irissë, I have to watch the road, can you find him something to eat?”

Irissë stared at him. “What did you bring?”

“What did  _you_  bring?”

“Nothing! I thought  _you_  were bringing food!” Irissë rummaged in the glove compartment. “I found some toffees!” She said triumphantly, after a while. She grimaced. “How  _old_ are these Finno?”

“Not quite sure. They’ve been in my car… a while. Just give them to him.”

“The last thing he needs is more sugar.”

“They should at least stick his teeth together. Stop him talking for a while.”

**[6:55pm, Saturday]**

Findekáno thought for a moment. “I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with… R!”

“Road?”

“Dammit, Irissë, you’re too good at this!”

“It’s a boring game” declared Arakáno.

**[7:03pm, Saturday]**

“I need to pee” squealed Arakáno.

“We’ll stop at the next petrol station” said Findekáno.

**[7:31pm, Saturday]**

They sat in a booth in a grimy petrol station café. Arakáno was pulling apart a bagel curiously, whilst Findekáno and Irissë sipped black coffee and shared a rather plastic-looking pasty.

“Ugh. Remind me never to eat anything we buy at a petrol station, ever again.” He poked at the greyish filling suspiciously.

“Remind me never to buy anything from a petrol station ever again. For that matter, remind me only to go on road trips with Turno in future.”

Arakáno coughed, spitting crumbs onto the floor.

**[7:49pm, Saturday]**

“Irissë?”

“Hmm?”

“Where’s Arakáno?”

“Findekáno…  _did you leave our little brother behind at a petrol station?_ ”

His face was ashen pale. “We.  _We_  left our little brother behind at the petrol station. But that’s the gist of it, yes.”

“Want me to find the turning to go back?”

“Yes please, Irissë. That would be good.”

**[9:22pm, Saturday]**

“Irissë, I feel sick!”

Irissë looked back at Arakáno. “Are you sure? Are you going to be sick?”

He nodded, miserably.

“Finno, could you stop the car? We shouldn’t have given him all those sweets earlier” she muttered.

“Well, who’s fault was that?”

She looked at him pointedly as he drew to a halt by the side of the road. “Yours just as much as mine. Alright Arakáno” she said, getting out of the car into the thin, drizzling mist and unstrapping Arakáno from his car seat. “How are you feeling?”

He stuck his lip out, considering this. “Actually I feel okay now.”

“You don’t feel sick?”

“No.”

Irissë rolled her eyes. “Eru save me from my little brother. Finno, he’s fine!”

“Um… Irissë…? There’s a problem. The car won’t start.”

“ _What?_ ”

“You know that petrol station?”

Her eyes widened in horror as she realised the implication. “We forgot to buy petrol, didn’t we?”

Findekáno nodded, looking dejected.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got any spare” she said acidly.

Findekáno merely glared at her. He took out his phone. “It’s alright. It’s not far to Formenos now. I’ll call Maitimo, he can come and pick us up. We can do something about the car tomorrow, when it’s light.”

He held his phone up, then waved it about a little. Then he walked in a wide circle about the car. “No signal” he said, looking at Irissë. “You try?”

Placing a sleepy Arakáno in Findekáno’s arms, she took out her phone and repeated the exercise.

“No luck, I’m afraid.”

She looked up and down the road. It was a small country road, and it was deserted. “Looks like we’re stuck here for now.”

“So it would seem, Irissë. So it would seem.”

**[11:34pm, Saturday]**

“… We could hitchhike?”

“I would be fully in support of that idea” said Irissë, wrapping her jacket closer around herself, Findekáno, and Arakáno, who had fallen asleep between them in the back seat, “if there were actually any cars passing by…”

**[2:01am, Sunday]**

“Finno!” Irissë hissed, shaking him awake.

“Wha - ”

“Look!” she pointed across the dark field by the side of the road to the line of orange lamps that marked the highway at the other side. There were headlights there, making their way away from them. “A car!”

“It’s not much good to us now, is it?” he said bitterly, as they watched the headlights recede into the distance through the rain.

**[4:27am, Sunday]**

Irissë’s head slipped onto Findekáno’s shoulder, startling him into partial wakefulness. Arakáno stirred but did not wake. Findekáno squinted around, drawing the jacket and his own scarf closer around the three of them as he peered outside the car.

**[10:33am, Sunday]**

A knock on the window jerked them awake. Irissë was momentarily disorientated, and wrapped her arms more tightly around Arakáno, who was sucking his thumb as he slept with his head in her lap and his legs on Findekáno’s, drooling on her jeans.

She stared around, looking for the source of the noise. Then she saw a very familiar face at the window, and her stomach leapt. “Finno!” she hissed, elbowing him in the ribs. “It’s uncle!”

“ _What?_ ” he looked horrified. “Uncle Fëanáro is  _here?_ ”

“No! It’s uncle Arafinwë!”

Findekáno did not look much reassured, but Arafinwë gave them a cheerful wave through the window as Irissë wound it down.

“Nephews and niece? What a pleasant surprise! I was just heading back to Alqualondë from Formenos. I wanted to see father.” He looked at them doubtfully. “If you’re heading to Formenos from Tirion, you’re a bit out of your way, aren’t you? What brings you to this… charming stretch of B-road? It was not intentional, I assume? Do your parents know where you are?”

“No” said Findekáno, looking wretched. “And right now, I don’t even care if you tell them, but please, please uncle, can you take us home?”

He gave them a long, appraising look. “Oh, get in the landrover. And no, I won’t tell your parents, not if you don’t want me to.”

Findekáno, without a word, got out of the car and gave Arafinwë a hug.

**[10:49pm, Sunday]**

Anairë lifted a sleeping Arakáno and stroked his hair, still damp from a bath. “Did anything interesting happen while we were gone?”

Irissë shrugged. “Not really. It was a very quiet weekend, really. Arakáno was surprisingly well behaved.”

“Yes, very quiet indeed” affirmed Findekáno, a little too emphatically. Irissë elbowed him in the ribs again discretely, as she saw Turukáno’s eyes narrow in suspicion.

**[11:32pm, Sunday]**

“Come in!” said Findekáno belatedly, as Irissë knocked on the door and let herself into his room. He was lying on top of the bedclothes in his pyjamas, staring up at the ceiling, and she lay down beside him.

“Well, I think that had the potential to turn out much worse than it did” he said, after a while.

“You’re right, Finno.” She smiled, and then gave him a hug. “Still, let’s never go with one of your plans again, okay?”

“Hey! The plan itself wasn’t  _that_  bad!”

“Fair point. Alright then, let’s just never speak of it to anyone ever, how about that?”

“Yes. Yes, that’s probably a good idea.”


End file.
